International Journal of Public Opinion Research Vol. No. ß The Author . Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The World Association for Public Opinion Research. All rights reserved. doi:./ijpor/edw Advance Access publication March Silencing Fellow Citizens: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Validation of a Scale for Measuring the Belief in the Importance of Actively Silencing Others Yariv Tsfati and Shira Dvir-Gvirsman Department of Communication, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel; Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel Abstract While the free expression of ideas is considered essential for democratic life, some citizens think that it is important to silence those with whom they disagree. In this article, we conceptualize the belief in the importance of silencing others as an indi- vidual difference and define it as people’s belief that it is not only legitimate but also important and necessary to tell other people to refrain from expressing their political views. We propose a scale for measuring this construct, and test its validity and psychometric properties in two studies in Israel. Study (n ¼ ) is a -wave study, with Wave conducted in the midst of the Israel–Gaza conflict and Wave conducted months after the war. We established that the scale was reliable, stable, and distinct from relevant and related constructs such as political intolerance, authoritarianism, and support for government censorship but also logically correlated with them. In Study (n ¼ ), convergent validity was demonstrated using a set of responses to online comments to a news story. Those scoring high on the scale tended to support writing to the editor and requesting the removal of comments with which they disagreed. They also favored writing to the authors of these comments and making clear to them that their views were unacceptable. All correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Yariv Tsfati, Department of Communication, University of Haifa, 31905 Haifa, Israel. E-mail: ytsfati@com.haifa.ac.il Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ijpor/article/30/3/391/3063136 by The David J. Light Law Library, Tel Aviv University user on 10 August 2020